How Roger Federer’s quokka selfie sparked a Rottnest tourism rush

Topics

ONE happy snap from a certain tennis legend not only broke the internet but is now doing wonders for WA.

When Roger Federer came to Perth for the Hopman Cup, he happily promoted WA to the world.

More than half a billion people read about his visit to Rottnest Island, and now, the "Federer Factor" is in full swing - with record numbers of tourists flocking to the holiday island.

Federer’s speech was all it took to get the ball rolling: "So happy to be in Perth, it is a wonderful city so the people watching at home, make a trip here to Perth, come on guys, come visit it."

Federer has more than 31 million social media followers - 15.1 million on Facebook, 11.7 million on Twitter and 4.6 million on Instagram.

When he posted his quokka selfie, on December 28, the photo got 540,000 likes on Instagram and 619 online articles were written about it in 45 countries.

And Google searches for Rottnest Island went through the roof - in January they were up 400 per cent from the same time last year.

The State Government says it was all part of a carefully-crafted plan.

"We knew that if we got him out to Rottnest and we got him with a quokka and that vision of him getting the selfie as well as the actual selfie itself would go bananas on social media, it did,” Tourism Minister Paul Papalia said.

“International tourists make up 13 per cent of the island's visitors but that number is on the rise... And they're flocking to the spot where Federer took his selfie.”